A San Pedro man has been charged with threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, an entrenched Democrat who has cultivated a national following for her outspoken efforts to impeach President Donald Trump.

Anthony Scott Lloyd, 44, was charged by a federal grand jury for making the threatening phone call to Waters’ Capitol Hill office at 12:51 p.m. Oct. 22, a Sunday. The one-minute, 33-second voicemail, which was flagged by Waters’ staff, was laced with expletives, a racial slur and used the words “dead” and “kill” four times, according to an indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“This is not reflective of the 43rd District of California,” Waters said in a written statement Monday about the indictment. “My district is very diverse, and though we don’t always agree, my constituents would never threaten me. We are collectively focused on the progress, safety, and security of our communities.”

A call to Lloyd seeking comment was not returned.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters

The suspect, according to the complaint, “called U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters on her Washington, D.C., office line from his cellphone and left a threatening voicemail, specifically threatening to kill her if she continues making comments regarding the President. Lloyd has admitted to using (his) phone to leave the voice mail. …”

Waters aide Zachary Cooper told investigators the office receives numerous “hateful” and “harassing” voicemail messages, but rarely any in which the word “kill” is used.

The voicemail left for Waters said:

“This message is directed to Maxine Waters herself. If you continue to threaten the president, which you’ve done this morning with your comments about what you’re going to (do), what you said at your little (expletive) (press) conference, if you continue to make threats towards the president, you’re going to wind up dead, Maxine, ’cause we’ll kill you. You can call the FBI, you can call the NSA, you can call whoever the (expletive) you want and report this and try to get a surge or some kind of (expletive) phone number. (expletive), if you do it again, you’re dead. You’re a (expletive) dead (expletive).”

According to the complaint, investigators played a tape of the voicemail for Lloyd, who then told them, “Yeah, but there’s nothing to it.”

Lloyd was freed on a $20,000 bond after his Nov. 9 arrest. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court. If convicted, he would face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

He said a friend who saw him later told him he was an “idiot” for making the call and could probably expect “a knock on the door.” He told investigators that after leaving the voicemail he thought to himself, ‘You probably could have done that one better,’ ” according to the complaint.

‘Valid threat’

FBI investigators considered the voicemail “to be a valid threat against Congresswoman Waters intended to intimidate or retaliate against the congresswoman.”

Lloyd, who was interviewed by FBI investigators at the northwest San Pedro home he shares with his grandmother, said he was upset by comments Waters had made about Trump that weekend.

He admitted to investigators that he made the call, but said he had no intention of harming the congresswoman, according to the complaint.

Lloyd told investigators he made the call while he was “probably parked in his car in San Pedro waiting for his friend to walk her dog,” the complaint stated. “He was listening to talk radio and it was ‘spur of the moment’ that he decided to call Congresswoman Waters. Lloyd said that he was going to ‘make a statement’ because ‘his voice matters.’ ”

Waters, 79, who represents a district stretching from Marina del Rey to Lomita and east to South Los Angeles, has become one of Trump’s staunchest critics. In October, she drew headlines when she told a crowd she was motivated to “take Trump out.” She later said she was talking about impeachment.

The complaint noted that he’d also been embroiled in an online dispute with a man whom Lloyd said had threatened him on YouTube. Lloyd, who initially thought investigators came to his door about that matter, had recently filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division.

Lloyd told FBI investigators that he told the LAPD that if the man showed up on his doorstep, “I’m not calling you. I’m telling you, I’ll wait for his pulse to stop and then I’ll call you because I want to ensure that he’s dead. And I told them that. I’ll do it first, wait for him to die, then I’ll call ya. And then you can bring the morgue out.”

Investigators said there are no records of Lloyd possessing any registered firearms.

Donna Littlejohn has covered the Harbor Area as a reporter since 1981. Along with development, politics, coyotes, battleships and crime, she writes features that have spotlighted an array of topics, from an alligator on the loose in a city park to the modern-day cowboys who own the trails on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She loves border collies and Aussie dogs, cats, early California Craftsman architecture and most surviving old stuff. She imagines the 1970s redevelopment sweep that leveled so much of San Pedro's historic waterfront district as very sad.